MPH Cover - P 2013
Mark Millar, the creator of Kick-Ass and Wanted, is about to unleash his own superhero universe.
The writer tells The Hollywood Reporter he’s putting the final touches on MPH, a comic he co-created with artist Duncan Fegredo (best known for his Hellboy art) that is launching out of the final pages of Kick-Ass 3 — wading into Stan Lee territory.
“This is the beginning of a big plan I have for the next big period in my career as I build, I guess, the twenty-first century version of the Marvel Universe,” Millar said. “Marvel kicked things off in the sixties with Fantastic Four and we want this book to be as significant for the Millarworld line.”
Millar says four or five books will debut in the next two years, with MPH being the first. The new book follows four 19-year olds who get their hands on a street drug that gives them the ability to move at light-speed for seven days — all set in present-day Detroit.
EXCLUSIVE TEASER: Read Mark Millar’s ‘Jupiter’s Legacy’
“What comes next is kind of The Fast and the Furious without cars and a completely new way of doing super-speed in comics,” says Millar. “I’ve actually been trying to nail a super-speed project for a number of years and finally pulled it off with this one…And setting a high-speed story in the place where they used to build America’s best cars seems especially poignant.”
Millar promises no costumes and no code-names in what will initially be a six-issue mini-series, with the option of returning to tell more stories down the road.
Millar will continue to write his superhero epic Jupiter’s Legacy (issue three comes out next week) but will be juggling his new universe as he works 12-hour days. Image Comics, which publishes Jupiter’s Legacy, will also be releasing MPH, with the first issue expected to hit stores in February.
Hollywood hasn’t forgotten about him either. Universal’s Kick-Ass 2 may be in the rearview mirror, but Joe and Matt Carnahan have just today finished writing their script for the adaptation of Millar’s violent comic Nemesis, which they will be submitting to Fox for studio perusal.
